Bay tries to do Kubrick and ends up doing Bay. Were we expecting something else?

Rating: 3/10 (17 September 2005)

This movie looks like a recipe. You take one helping of Logan's run, mix it with a little Equilibrium, rip two measures off the Matrix and borrow some images of the future that look like I, Robot (which in itself looked like something else.) When you mix all these ingredients together, you have the Island, part human, part machine. The first half is the human part.
We see the world through the questioning eyes of Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor), inhabitant of a Big Brother style world of forced tranquillity. We feel his annoyance at things like restriction of Alcohol, meat bans due to forced health regimes, even restrictions in clothing. We discover the secrets of the world around him as he does. We know that the sinister Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean) knows more than he lets on. In short, we, the audience, are mildly intrigued. Yes, this looks like something I've seen before after the many Philip K Dick adaptations of the post Wachowski era, but we'll give it a chance. Maybe this will go in a different direction, maybe Michael Bay's breakaway from Jerry Bruckheimer was just what he needed.
So, Lincoln Six Echo uncovers the secrets of the world he has been placed in, that there is no "Island" where all the inhabitants are promised they will end up by way of winning a lottery, and that each person sent to the Island ends up dead. Six Echo escapes with lady friend Jordan Two Delta (Scarlet Johanssen) to the outside world where Dr. Merrick and his cronies give chase. It's here that the film turns to machine. I won't reveal any more plot even though you'll guess it from this point in the film anyway. It's as if writer Caspian Tredwell-Owen (who sounds like a character in the movie) gave up on his original idea halfway through and just said "Sod it, lets just make it predictable Hollywood fare." We know what Michael Bay's movies are like. This was marketed as a departure for Bay, new and interesting, but audience members must feel cheated now. This is a by the numbers Bay action movie. The characters are Threadbare, the script is stilted. In the second half there must have been pages and pages of dialogue that simply read "Hold on!" "Look out!" and "Aaaaargh!" The action sequences look like the leftovers from Bad Boys 2 and the excellent freeway chase. The movie is far too glossy for it's gloomy subject matter and would have been better served as the mood piece it was marketed as. It also thinks it's so clever it comes out looking dumb and predictable. I give this movie 3 stars because the first 40 minutes intrigued me and Steve Buscemi provided comic relief in a fun cameo. The rest had me looking at my watch and actually begging for it to finish. I like Michael Bay movies in general, but this one tried to convince me it was something else, and it didn't work even a little bit.